The Wilkins Chronicle a Selection of Wilkins-Related Trove Articles, Incorporating Advertisements and Cartoons from the Day
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The Wilkins Chronicle A selection of Wilkins-related Trove articles, incorporating advertisements and cartoons from the day Please note * indicates that the photo used many front-page air rescues of plane crews He had blasted a Hun two-two-seater out is taken from the Sir George Hubert Wilkins who crashed in Alaska and Canada. The of the air, set fire to a group of wooden huts Papers, SPEC.PA.56.0006, Byrd Polar and club has a world-wide membership of 810. with incendiaries, and killed more than 100 Climate Research Center Archival Another Australian member is Mr. German infantry he had caught marching in Program, Ohio State University Charles Mountford, of St. Peters, South a solid column. Australia, who was leader of the 1948 He wanted some more of that sort of 1951 Arnhem Land Expedition. A distinguished excitement. 20 of the 810 rank as honorary members. Anti-aircraft guns kept potting at him as These include South Australian-born Sir he probed 10 miles inside enemy territory. 13 January 1951 Hubert Wilkins and noted South Australian He couldn’t find a target worth tackling. Prehistoric meat for a club dinner Antarctic explorer Sir Douglas Mawson. Disappointed, he turned for home. Then “Mail” New York Office The 17 holders include most of the great way down below, he sighted two German Sydney explorer John Hallstrom and hors names of modern exploring history — two-seaters pottering round. They were his d’oeuvres 25,000 years old were two of the Amundsen, Byrd, Peary, and Rasmussen. meat. attractions at the annual dinner of the Even the drinks with which club members Explorers Club in New York tonight. settled down after dinner were unusual. Hallstrom who is a club member, They were made with effervescent ice. It travelled to New York to show coloured came from the Juneau icecap, a motion pictures of his explorations in New mountainous glacial region tying round the Guinea’s Wahgi Valley, at the dinner. Alaskan capital town of Juneau. Hallstrom’s father Edward is not only a Glaciologist Maynard Miller, of the member of the club, but was last year given American Geographic Society sent 300 lb. the unique title of EBP because of his to New York. It was kept in the Hotel generosity. The initials stand for Explorers Roosevelt cold room for a week before the Best Friend. The hors d’oeuvres were bits dinner, when bits of this ice were put into of the prehistoric elephant-like animal the members’ whiskies. The room heat called the mastodon. Nature had not only melted the ice, produced not water, but a preserved the meat in her own deep freeze liquid like soda-water. The glacial ice, for at least 250,000 years, but the chefs at having been formed under intense the Hotel Roosevelt, where the dinner was pressures, is full of compressed air, which held, didn’t even have to cook it. Nature bubbles out when the ice melts. had already done that. Mastodons roaming the Arctic Aleutian Islands, which jut out from Alaska, often fell into cracks in the glaciers from which they could not escape. Exactly what happened next is a mystery to glaciologists, but the Aleutians are a volcanic chain, which must account for the fact that the mastodon meat, preserved in glacial ice, has also been cooked. Companies, which seek fold by forcing jets of water against the edges of Aleutian glaciers, have found several pieces of mastodon meat since the end of the war. MASTODON Hors d’oeuvres Father Bernard Hubbard, of the Jesuit Mission, nicknamed “the Glacier Priest,” Mail (Adelaide, SA), Saturday 13 January because he works in Canada and Alaska, 1951, page 25. sent the chunk from Unimak Island, which https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/5 became the Explorers’ Club hors d’oeuvres. 5856448 Down went the nose of his plane in a The meat was dark, had the consistency of screaming dive which built up to 220 m.p.h. seal blubber, and tasted vaguely of nuts. It 3 March 1951 — terrific speed in 1917. was handed round in the form of pieces on FAMOUS DISASTERS Every nerve was concentrated on judging the ends of toothpicks. One of the main EAGLE IN THE MIRE the moment when he would press the firing bar courses at the dinner was bison meat. The bison, a sullen, shaggy animal, which once of his machine-gun, and get his second kill. roamed North America in millions, was Suddenly there was a fearful clattering in nearly wiped out by hungry early settlers. his ears. Something slammed into his left Today, the meat which comes from foot like a trip hammer. Government protected herds in the Middle Though fresh to combat, he immediately West, is a delicacy, selling for twice the knew that a fighter was tight on his tail. price of best beef. The table decorations at With that thought he blacked out for 40 the dinner were the rarest in New York. seconds. They were Tundra moss and grasses which Low cloud obscured the German lines. Coming to, he found himself spinning to grow in Arctic areas too cold to support No Hun planes were round. The leader of the ground. Three planes were beating him trees. The Tundra moss was sent from the flight of eight planes from No. 19 up. Kodiak, in the Aleutians, by United States Squadron, Royal Flying Corps, fired a light Navy Captain George Kosco, who signal: “Go home — nothing doing.” commands the weather station there. Guests Obediently the pilots turned for home. at the dinner included the Australian The wild Australian kid in the patrol found Ambassador to Washington (Mr. Norman a big white cloud nearby, and nipped into it. Makin). He didn't want to go back to base. He At the dinner, the club awarded the wanted a fight. seventeenth of its Medals of Merit to A few days before he had made his first Angrily he tried to turn and fight back. United States Air Force Control Colonel flight over the enemy lines, and had turned But his left leg had gone and wouldn’t work Bernt Balchen, who was a pioneer in Arctic on a performance which had got him a the rudder bar. flying techniques, as well as a veteran of recommendation for an MC. 1 The Wilkins Chronicle A selection of Wilkins-related Trove articles, incorporating advertisements and cartoons from the day The Hun fighter had closed to 20 yards. Wyndham agent had been sending urgent Bullets were spraying his cockpit. Blood messages to Sydney telling the Southern had filled his left flying boot, and was Cross not to take off in any circumstances. running over the top. In the heart of Australia, the plane ran By good luck, the action had taken him into a terrific storm. For hour after hour the over his own lines. The German planes fell pilots flew blind. They cursed the back and the pilot limped to his aerodrome. Wyndham agent. His pals pulled him out of the cockpit and Dawn found them on the West Australian counted more than 180 bullet holes in the coast and heading out over a raging sea. plane. Dozens of bullets had missed his Where was Wyndham? head by inches. They flew north-west expecting to round In spite of his pain, Charlie Kingsford- Cape Londonderry and fly round it into Smith laughed. The air was his friend, his Wyndham. After two hours flying they true home. It would never kill him. realised they were hopelessly lost. But, thousands of flying hours away, 17 As Smithy was preparing to fly south- years away, death was waiting for him in east, correctly guessing that his target lay the skies somewhere out from Rangoon. that way, a number of European huts were After the war, he was just another flier sighted. looking for a job. For a while he did some Ulm scribbled on a piece of paper, commercial flying in Western Australia. “Please point direction of Wyndham,” and But the big time was calling him. He threw the message overboard. wanted “fame, wealth, and excitement,” and Natives rushed from the buildings and he reckoned he could pull it all out of the pointed south-west. It seemed an air. unreasonable direction, but the pilots With a fellow airman, Keith Anderson, he decided the locals should know best, and flew to Sydney and the pair teamed up with swung the plane that way. C. T. P. Ulm, another young flier with big ideas. [It was later discovered that the natives at Smith and Ulm were of the same kidney. Australian Government even contributed the Drysdale Mission had never found the They wanted the same things. “Let’s £5,000. note and imagined the airmen had been introduce ourselves to Australia,” they No one but the plane crew could seeking an emergency landing ground.] plotted. understand how mortal men had courage In June, 1927, Kingsford-Smith and Ulm enough to launch out over a mighty ocean Smithy piloted the plane back along the flew round Australia in 10 days 5 hours in a and gamble twice on finding tiny island coastline away from Wyndham. More huts patched-up Bristol which should have fallen landing grounds on which to rest and refuel. appeared below. Ulm wrote another note: out of the sky a dozen times. Such concern amused Smith. He knew “Please place white sheets pointing Australia sat up and took notice. his destiny was safe in the air. direction of Wyndham and mark in large “Let’s give them a bigger kick,” said Keith Anderson had missed the glory and figures number of miles.” Smith.